(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

One out of every four years, there are few elections on the ballot in New York City, with almost no competitive races at the city or state level. Such is the case in 2019, the year after congressional, state legislative, and statewide races, and the year before the presidential, congressional, and state legislative races.

But New Yorkers will this fall have the opportunity to vote on several ballot proposals that could make fundamental changes to the City Charter, the document that governs central powers and functions of elected offices, city agencies, and local elections. And, there is also the culmination of the high-profile race to become the next Queens District Attorney, multiple special elections, and the first test-run of early voting and electronic poll books, both passed in Albany earlier this year. There would be two other district attorney races, but both the top prosecutors in the Bronx and Staten Island have gone unchallenged this year.

There are also important deadlines that voters must heed ahead of November 5, Election Day, which could affect their ability to participate in next year’s presidential and other primary elections. The presidential primary in New York is set to take place April 28 (Governor Andrew Cuomo had proposed moving the state and congressional primaries, currently scheduled for June, to the same date but the state Legislature rejected the idea).

It’s also noteworthy that this election will mark the halfway point between New York City mayoral elections, meaning it is exactly two years until the next mayor is selected.

Deadlines
Election day is November 5 this year, but there are also nine days of early voting, which is launching in New York for the first time.

Friday, October 11 is the last day to register to vote in the 2019 general election. Registration applications must be delivered in person to the New York City Board of Elections or mailed with an October 11 postmark (it must be received by October 16 to be processed). The Department of Motor Vehicles also processes online voter registration applications for individuals with a valid state driver’s license, permit or non-driver ID, and social security number.

October 29 is the last day for voters to postmark an application to receive an absentee ballot, while November 4 is the last day that voters can apply in person for an absentee ballot.

November 4 is also the last day when absentee ballots must be postmarked and mailed in order to be counted. The ballot must reach the BOE by November 12 at the latest. Voters can also have their absentee ballot delivered by another person to the BOE by election day. 

The BOE offers voter registration forms in five languages and the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs supplements those with forms in 11 additional languages.

Governor Andrew Cuomo also signed an executive order last year that grants conditional pardons on a case-by-case basis allowing parolees under post-release community supervision to vote.

Separately, if a voter changes their address on their registration by October 16, the BOE must process it by the general election.

New York will also roll out nine days of early voting for the November general election, after it was approved by the state Legislature and signed by Cuomo earlier this year. From October 26 to November 3, polling sites will open for varying hours across the five boroughs. There are 61 sites in total – 18 in Brooklyn, 14 in Queens, 11 in the Bronx, 9 each in Manhattan and Staten Island. (There will be no early voting on November 4, the day before Election Day.) Voters are assigned to specific early voting sites, which they can fine here along with poll site hours.

To facilitate early voting, the BOE will for the first time utilize electronic poll books, which were also approved by the Legislature and Cuomo this year. 

On Election day, all poll sites statewide will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Voters can find their poll sites here (it always makes sense to double check in the days before heading out to vote).

Governor Cuomo has also signed a bill passed by both houses of the Legislature that significantly shifts New York’s deadline by which voters must change their political party enrollment to be able to vote in the next primary election. Previously, for a registered voter to switch party affiliation – from unaffiliated (aka “independent”) to Democrat or Republican, for example – to vote in next year’s presidential primary in April or the federal and state primaries scheduled for June, they had to deliver their application to the BOE by October 11 of this year. But the bill signed by Cuomo moved that deadline to February 14, 2020.

What’s On The Ballot
In New York City, there are two special elections, one citywide and one City Council, taking place in the general election, as well as the general election for Queens District Attorney, and a variety of judicial elections. (District Attorneys Darcel Clark of the Bronx and Michael McMahon of Staten Island will both get another term by uncontested elections.)

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a Democrat who was elected in a special election in February, must defend his seat this year in order to serve the remainder of the term that runs through 2021. His opponents include City Council Member Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, who has acknowledged his extremely slim chances of victory in a city where Democrats overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans, and Libertarian candidate Devin Balkind. Borelli has also said he’s running in part to discuss the powers of the office and make it clear that the public advocate should hold the mayor accountable.

Williams’ election kicked off a nonpartisan special election in May for his City Council seat, in Brooklyn’s District 45 which covers Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood, Marine Park, Flatlands and Kensington. The seat was won by Farah Louis, who previously served as Williams’ deputy chief of staff. Williams had, however, endorsed her opponent, Monique Chandler-Waterman, a non-profit leader. 

Chandler-Waterman attempted to challenge Louis in the June 26 primary but was unsuccessful yet again. Louis faces only one active challenger, Anthony Beckford, in the general election, but she is expected to win easily and serve out the remainder of the term through 2021.

In Queens, Borough President Melinda Katz eventually won a recounted and drama-filled Democratic primary over her closest competitor, public defender Tiffany Cabán, and is expected to win easily in the general election over Republican nominee Joe Murray, a defense attorney and former NYPD officer (Murray is a registered Democrat but received a Wilson-Pakula certificate from the Queens Republican Party in order to appear on their ballot line).

In July, the 2019 Charter Revision Commission approved five overarching questions to place on the ballot, containing 19 proposals in all that cover issues such as elections and redistricting, government ethics, police accountability, the city budget, and land use policy. Voters throughout the five boroughs can cast a “yes” or “no” vote for each of the five questions, and they each need a simple majority of votes cast to be approved.

Read all about them here:  Charter Revision Commission Gives Final Approval to 19 Proposals in 5 Questions to Appear on November Ballot

Note - this article has been updated. 

(photo: Edwin Torres/Mayor's Office)

New York City is showing modest progress in the fight to curb the explosion in drug overdoses, with the health department reporting 38 fewer deaths last year compared to 2017, after a concerted $60-million effort focused on substance abuse prevention, treatment, and education, especially with regard to opioids.

One aspect of that fight has been the expansion of access to medication-assisted treatment, which experts and activists say is a crucial element in preventing overdoses, curbing addiction, and helping those suffering from substance abuse disorders to reclaim their lives. The city has continued some advancement on that front, training thousands of more prescribers, while a state bill that could help that effort, which passed the Legislature this year, languishes unsigned by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Medication-assisted treatment involves prescribing and administering drugs such as methadone and buprenorphine, which help mitigate the symptoms of withdrawal and curb cravings.

Methadone is itself an opioid, albeit a relatively weaker one, that can help those suffering from addiction wean off stronger narcotics. Buprenorphine acts similarly and is an even more effective treatment drug since its effects level out no matter the size of the dosage. Both, however, are stringently regulated.

Methadone treatment programs are subject to oversight by numerous federal agencies, and the drug must be administered to patients on site under observation. For buprenorphine, doctors must receive waivers to prescribe the drug after undergoing an eight-hour training. In the United States, compared to other countries, the treatment remains vastly underutilized.

“Medication-assisted Treatment (MAT) is a standard of care for opioid use disorder and it is critical for treating addiction, and also is a protective factor against overdose,” said Dr. Denise Paone, Director of Research and Surveillance at the city Health Department’s Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use. “So we've invested a lot of effort into the expansion, particularly of buprenorphine, because as you know, methadone is federally regulated.”

Since the March 2017 launch of HealingNYC, the city’s multi-faceted strategy to combat the opioid crisis, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has trained 1,800 new buprenorphine prescribers, surpassing the original goal of 1,500. The aim of the program has been to increase buprenorphine prescriptions by 20,000 by 2022.

There has already been some success, with prescriptions up from 115,167 in 2017 to 126,002 in 2018.

Besides training new prescribers, the city has also expanded a Nurse Care Manager program – where registered nurses coordinate treatment for patients and with providers – to 26 primary care clinics around the city, and is funding 9 of 14 syringe service programs to provide on-site buprenorphine.

“In actual clinical practice, we are providing funding to these federally qualified health centers that serve those that are underinsured or not insured. And we provide support so that these primary care clinics can provide on-site buprenorphine,” Paone noted.

It’s hard to draw a through line from the investments in buprenorphine access to the reduction in overdose deaths, Paone said, because of the many elements of HealingNYC that work in concert. “But buprenorphine obviously plays a major role,” she said.

There are still numerous challenges as the city attempts to increase the number of doctors prescribing the life-saving drug. The first is the required physician waiver. “There is an effort across the country, supported by a lot of attorneys general, as well as health departments to work at the federal policy level to have this waiver removed,” Paone said, citing a letter sent by several attorneys general to congressional leadership, calling for eliminating the waiver. But that effort has seen little movement. 

In New York State, buprenorphine prescribers are also required to get prior authorization from insurance companies. A bill sponsored by Assemblymember Dan Quart and State Senator Pete Harckham passed the Legislature earlier this year and would do away with that requirement but it has yet to be signed by Cuomo. “The bill is under review,” said Caitlin Girouard, a Cuomo spokesperson, in an email. 

“From social stigma to regulatory barriers, people seeking treatment for substance use disorders are faced with significant obstacles,” Quart said in a statement. “While this bill won’t remove all existing roadblocks, it will cut red tape and wait times, guaranteeing New Yorkers faster access to lifesaving treatment. The opioid epidemic has devastated communities across the state and I encourage the Governor to sign my bill into law, and ensure those seeking treatment have swift access to the care they need.”

Harckham, a Democrat representing parts of Westchester and the Hudson Valley, chairs the Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse and is also co-chair of Joint Senate Task Force on Opioids, Addiction & Overdose Prevention, which was created earlier this year and held its first hearing last month.

“We want to find out what's working, what the gaps are, what we need to do from a legislative standpoint, what we need to do from a regulatory standpoint,” he said in a phone interview. “And certainly we have to break down any barriers we can to medication-assisted treatment because evidence shows, that's what saves lives.” Harckham expects that next year, the Legislature will pursue a robust package of bills to fight the opioid crisis based off the task force’s work. 

Removing the stigma around buprenorphine and methadone also remains a priority for the city, and the Health Department has sought to fight it with a $2.8-million mass media and advertising campaign called “Living Proof” displaying real stories of individuals who have benefited from treatment.

The ads ran on local television (2,141 times), newspapers, online, in social media, and on the subway system. Besides the millions that saw the ads on the subways and ferries, the health department provided data that social media ads led to 2 million online video views and over 80,000 visits to NYC Health’s “Opioid Addiction Treatment with Buprenorphine and Methadone” web page. “It was actually quite powerful, and then we're in the process of doing an evaluation of that campaign,” Paone said. 

“Expanding access to medication treatment is really probably the most critical response right now to the opioid epidemic,” said Dr. Chinazo Cunningham, professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, which has trained several hundred buprenorphine prescribers. “But what we also know from research is only about half of the people who are trained, actually go on to prescribe it and actually treat addiction and so we need to do more than just train people,” she added.

Besides that, Cunningham said the city needs to invest more in nurse care managers and that service providers need more support for mentoring and education in addiction treatment. “I think that the issue is there's not one thing to turn this epidemic around,” she said. “But all of these approaches are based in evidence to show that these are what the barriers are and these are the kinds of supports that are needed for providers to take this on and to provide treatment.”

Jasmine Budnella, drug policy coordinator at VOCAL-NY, an activist group, was among dozens who protested outside the governor’s New York City office last month, calling on him to take more action towards fighting the overdose epidemic. She said the prior-authorization bill is an important step to increase access to buprenorphine. “For low-income New Yorkers, that was the only bill that we were able to pass this last session that we know has proven evidence will work in reducing the overdose crisis,” she said in a phone interview.

Budnella believes the city’s approach to medication-assisted treatment needs to be more holistic and expanded past the areas where overdose deaths have been highest. She noted, for instance, that overdoses are a leading cause of death in homeless shelters.

“We need to continue expansion, but not just in areas of high need,” she said. “We need to make sure that we're extending to all people.” She urged the mayor to provide more funding to the health department and to the Department of Social Services, to ensure that the city tackles the nexus of the overdose and homelessness crises, particularly by investing in supportive housing for those who require addiction-treatment services.

“We need to make sure that we have wraparound services for folks,” she said. “We also need to make sure that the criminal justice system is not the first to get employed for people who use drugs…What we really need is infrastructure where we have social workers and public health experts who are the ones employed to go help people with substance use disorder or mental health issues, so that the police don't have to police poverty.”

New York City Hall

What to watch for this week in New York politics:

Mayor de Blasio was back in the city to march in a wet West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn on Monday after Nevada and California presidential campaign stops (and a family trip to Connecticut). The mayor is continuing with his presidential bid even as several others, such as New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, have dropped out recently. Neither de Blasio nor Gillibrand qualified for the Democratic primary debate set for September 12, which 10 candidates will take part in. (It is worth noting that the mayor entered the race in May whereas Gillibrand declared her candidacy in January.)

De Blasio is hoping to make the October debate, which has the same polling and fundraising thresholds as the September debate, while also saying that the debates are not as significant as other parts of the campaign. But de Blasio has been stagnant in the polls since entering the race and does not appear to be raising much money from many donors. He insists it’s still early, he’s still getting his message out, and he can break through by the time the first votes are cast in Iowa in February.

There’s a lot going for de Blasio to address back in the five boroughs: he must wrestle with major education recommendations put forth last week by his School Diversity Advisory Group; deal with increases in anti-Semitic hate crimes, NYPD officer suicides, and byciclist and pedestrian fatalities. It’s also the first week of school. And more (NYCHA, homelessness, and so on).

Under pressure from City Council members given recent anti-Semitic attacks in the city, de Blasio’s office has said it would open the new Office of Hate Crime Prevention earlier than mandated by law, and that it has gotten the ball rolling just ahead of an announcement set for Tuesday of this week.

There are also two very important hearings scheduled for this week in the process to close the Rikers Island jail complex and open or enlarge a jail in each of the boroughs other than Staten Island. The City Planning Commission is holding a meeting for its vote on the proposal on Tuesday and the City Council is holding an open public hearing on Thursday.

One of those hearings is that the City Planning Commission, the other at the City Council, which has a busy week after the usual end-of-August break.

There’s a lot happening this week -- see our day-by-day rundown below.

***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
e-mail Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.***

The run of the week in detail:

Monday, September 2
Monday is Labor Day as well as the annual J'Ouvert celebration and West Indian Day Parade. Many elected officials, including Mayor de Blasio, Governor Andrew Cuomo, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and others are participating.

Tuesday, September 3
Mayor de Blasio and City Council Members including Mark Levine, Donovan Richards, Chaim Deutsch, and others appear set to announce the early opening of the city's Office of Hate Crime Prevention.

On Tuesday at 10 a.m. in Manhattan, there will be a joint state legislative hearing on “Electric Power System Reliability,” held by the Senate and Assembly committees on energy and authorities.

School Chancellor Richard Carranza will appear on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show on Tuesday morning.

At noon Tuesday, “The City Planning Commission (CPC) will hold a Special Meeting and vote on the New York City Borough-Based Jail System application. This session will be livestreamed.”

At 1 p.m. Tuesday the City Council Committee on Immigration will meet at City Hall to discuss several bills.

At 1 p.m. Tuesday, “elected officials, celebrities and supporters will hold a ‘server for an hour’” events at local restaurants in downtown Brooklyn “to call for an end to the subminimum wage for tipped workers. The event will also call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to enact One Fair Wage, a policy that would increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour for hundreds of thousands of tipped workers in New York. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries...will serve food and drinks to customers in support of One Fair Wage in New York and the Raise the Wage Act, which was historically passed in the United States House of Representatives on July 18, 2019, and is now waiting to bring the bill to a vote in the Senate. Elected officials—including NY Assemblymembers Michael Blake, Ellen Jaffe and Walter T. Mosley—as well as actress Erika Alexander, and Heather McGee will also join the “server for an hour” event. Dozens of restaurant workers and owners, community groups and labor allies, and other elected officials will address members of the press to ensure tipped workers will earn living wages to improve their lives, help professionalize the restaurant industry, support the many immigrant women and people of color workers, and boost the economy of New York City and the state.”

At 2 p.m. Tuesday in Flushing, “Council Member Peter Koo and the Glow Community Center will announce an upcoming free high school admissions seminar in Flushing. Students and parents will have the opportunity to learn about the admissions process, important deadlines, and what to know about recent proposals regarding the SHSAT. Participating organizations include InsideSchools and the Scholastic Merit Fund.”

At 5 p.m. Tuesday, the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis will host Climate Disasters and the Green New Deal at the New School, a discussion of climate change and the “great challenge for society, academics, and policy makers,” featuring Professors Stephanie Kelton; Claudia Kemfert; Bob Kopp; and Stefan Mittnik.

At 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams will will host a community discussion on “placard abuse and related issues” at Brooklyn Borough Hall.

NYCHA Chair and CEO Gregory Russ will appear on NY1's Inside City Hall on Tuesday evening.

Wednesday, September 4
At the City Council on Wednesday:
-At 9:30 a.m. the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet.
-At 10 a.m. the Committees on Public Housing and on Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction will hold a joint oversight hearing on “Accessibility in Public Housing.”
-At 10 a.m., the Committees on Environmental Protection, on Resiliency and Waterfronts, and on Consumer Protection will hold a joint oversight hearing on “Consolidated Edison Summer 2019 Service Outages.”

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, this week’s Max & Murphy show will air on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org, and feature a discussion about education policy and city schools. Specifically, the show will examine recently-released recommendations from the School Diversity Advisory Group, assembled by Mayor de Blasio in late 2017, to desegregate city schools and improve the overall education system. Guests will include DSAG member Matt Gonzales and City Council Member Mark Treyger, who chairs the Council’s education committee.

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, the Manhattan Institute will host the 2019 James Q. Wilson Lecture: The Entrenched Vs. The Newcomers, given by Harvard professor of economics Edward Glaeser. “Glaeser will address the conflict between entrenched interests and newcomers in its economic, political, geographic, and generational dimensions. The question for policymakers is whether they enhance the gains that flourish from the proximity and openness that cities offer, or double-down on the advantages secured by exclusion and anti-competitive behavior.”

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, City & State NY will host its 2019 Labor Power 100 reception, spotlighting “distinguished public officials, labor organizers, activists, academics, industry leaders, and others, as they come together for a unique networking opportunity.” State Senator Andrew Gounardes will be among the speakers.

Thursday, September 5
Thursday is the first day of school for most New York City public school students. Expect a busy day for Chancellor Richard Carranza and Mayor de Blasio.

At 8:15 a.m. Thursday, the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School will host a CityLaw breakfast with Dr. Oxiris Barbot, commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, on “Measles: NYC Policy and Thoughts on Anti-Vaccine Movement.”

At 10 a.m. Thursday, the City Council Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting and Maritime Uses will hold a public hearing on the borough-based jail system plan.

At 12:45 p.m. Thursday, New York Law School will hold Privacy Talks: Regulation and Innovation with Zachary Hecht, who is the current policy director for Tech:NYC and former policy director for City Council Member Ritchie Torres.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, the Vera Institute of Justice will host Incapacitated, Indigent, and Alone: A Conversation on New York State’s Guardianship System. “With guardianship such a challenging role, involving the coordination of complex legal, health care, case management, and property issues, it is more important than ever that NYS develop a coherent plan to support qualified guardians.” Speakers will include City Council Member Rory Lancman, Richmond County Supreme Court Justice Richard Troia, and others.

Friday, September 6
Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show at 10 a.m.

At 10 a.m. Friday in Manhattan, two Assembly committees will hold a joint hearing on “Robocalls, spoofing and nuisance calls.”

***
Have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).

***
by Ben Max
@GothamGazette

(photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

The New York City Health Department announced on Monday that the city’s efforts to curb the ongoing opioid crisis are showing progress, with 38 fewer drug overdose deaths in 2018 compared to the previous year. It is the first year over year drop in eight years, the city said.

There were 1,444 drug overdose deaths last year, down 3% from 1,482 in 2017, according to Health Department data. And the first three months of this year saw 331 overdose deaths, down 45 from the same time last year, and two fewer than the last three months of 2018.

“The decrease in drug overdose deaths is promising, but far too many New Yorkers are still dying,” Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in a statement. “We are closely monitoring the trends of the epidemic as they evolve and responding to upticks in emergency department visits and deaths with targeted strategies and community engagement. We remain firmly committed to expanding life-saving services and caring for New Yorkers who use drugs.”

The announcement from the city did not include comment from Mayor Bill de Blasio, though First Lady Chirlane McCray was quoted saying, in part, “There is no one solution to the pain and tragic consequences of the opioid epidemic and New York City’s multi-faceted response reflects that.”

Although there was a reduction in overdose deaths citywide, disparities exist across boroughs. Deaths rose in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island but dropped in Brooklyn and Queens. Among New Yorkers between the ages of 55 and 84, overdose deaths increased for the fourth year in a row. The rates of overdose increased by 5% for Latinos, and decreased 13% for black New Yorkers and 5% for white New Yorkers.

In 60% of all drug overdose deaths in 2018, the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl was detected.

The city has been undertaking a concerted effort for the last two years to decrease accidental overdose deaths. In March 2017, de Blasio and McCray launched HealingNYC, which has since invested $60 million in overdose treatment, prevention, and outreach measures, according to Monday’s announcement.

Since then, the city has distributed 230,000 kits of naloxone, a drug that can counter an overdose, for free through programs across the city. The Health Department also conducts free trainings in administering naloxone and has launched nonfatal overdose intervention programs in 11 city hospital emergency departments, and will expand it to 15 private hospitals by June 2020. 

The city has undertaken a broad outreach effort as well, working with 374 community-based venues, 88 substance use treatment programs, 140 pharmacies, and nine shelters in the Bronx and northern Manhattan.

The Health Department has trained 1,800 individuals to prescribe buprenorphine, which can reduce opioid dependency, and has funded 14 syringe service programs that helped 18,274 last year. Prior Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett has identified expanded use of buprenorphine as one essential key to bringing down opioid addiction and overdoses. The city also wants to open safe injection sites, but has yet to receive state approval to do so.

Also in her Monday statement, McCray said, “Individuals struggling with substance use disorders and families caught up in this scourge are our responsibility, and we will continue innovating to make sure communities have access to the lifesaving resources, services, and treatment they need.”

The city’s five district attorneys – Darcel Clark of the Bronx, Eric Gonzalez of Brooklyn, Michael McMahon of Staten Island, Cyrus Vance Jr. of Manhattan, and acting DA John Ryan of Queens – welcomed Monday’s news and called for greater action from the state to target the import of fentanyl and its variants, which remain largely unregulated. They called on the state Legislature to designate all those variants as Schedule I controlled substances and for increased funding for public awareness campaigns and police labs, coroners, and medical examiners.

“Fentanyl analogs serve no legitimate medical purpose and are produced by clandestine laboratories outside of the U.S. New types of fentanyl analogs are continually emerging as international labs slightly tweak chemical formulations. As long as fentanyl analogs in all their variants remain unregulated in New York State, they will proliferate unchecked and more lives will be lost,” the DAs said in a joint statement.

New York City Hall

What to watch for this week in New York politics:

This week, we'll find out whether Mayor Bill de Blasio and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York will qualify for the next Democratic presidential primary debate scheduled for September 12 and 13. The debate qualification deadline is Wednesday, August 28, and both candidates have struggled to meet the dual donor and polling threshold – each must hit at least 2% in 4 DNC-approved polls and at least 130,000 unique donors, including from at least 400 unique donors in at least 20 states. De Blasio said at a news conference last week that he wasn't "halfway there" yet in terms of the number of donors. Gillibrand has said she has just over 110,000 donors so far. On Sunday, de Blasio appeared at a CNN town hall, which could give him a bump in donors if not polling.

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday announced that the second span of the Kosciuszko Bridge would open to traffic on Thursday morning. Pedestrians and bikers will also be able to cross the bridge on Wednesday between noon and 6 p.m. The governor, who toured and surveyed the bridge on Sunday, will likely take a victory lap over the project as he touts its completion four years ahead of schedule and on budget. On Wednesday evening, the governor is hosting a cocktail reception to celberate the grand opening. "While the federal administration obsesses over building walls, in New York we are building bridges and other infrastructure critical to moving our 21st century economy forward," Cuomo said in a statement. "With the opening of the second span of the new Kosciuszko Bridge on Wednesday, we will once again demonstrate to the nation that it's possible to take on big projects and to get them done on time and on budget."

Overall, it's a relatively slow week in terms of events in New York politics, but there are some -- see our day-by-day rundown below.

***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
e-mail Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.***

The run of the week in detail:

Monday
Governor Cuomo is in Albany without any public events scheduled.

At 11 a.m. Monday in the Madison County Board of Supervisors Chambers, the Joint Senate Task Force on Opioids, Addiction & Overdose Prevention will hold a roundtable that will “focus around challenges faced by rural communities.”

At 11:30 a.m. Monday, the East Bronx History Forum will hold a street co-naming for WWII POW 2nd Lieutenant John Sekul, on Newbold Avenue between Castle Hill and Havemeyer Avenues.

At 1 p.m. Monday, the City Planning Commission will hold a review session, which will be livestreamed.

At 6 p.m. Monday, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza will appear on a live interview on FOX 5.

Mayor de Blasio will make his weekly appearance on NY1's Inside City Hall on Monday in the 7 and 11 p.m. hours.

At 7:30 p.m. Monday, Comptroller Scott Stringer will deliver remarks at a Rockaway Point Association meeting. At 8:15 p.m, he'll speak at a Point Breeze Association meeting.

Tuesday
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli is in Syracuse. At 11 a.m., he'll be speaking at a 9-11 memorial ceremony at the Horticulture Building at the New York State Fairgrounds. At 1:30 p.m., he'll connect local residents and businesses with lost money at an Unclaimed Funds Booth at the Center for Progress Building.

At 12 p.m. Tuesday, the Real Estate Board of New York will host “The New Rent Laws - What We Know AND What We Don't Know" - this event is for REBNY members only.

At 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, the NY Metropolitan Transportation Council will hold a program, finance and administration committee meeting.

At 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, Riders Alliance will hold a Bronx bus turnaround campaign meeting.

Wednesday
At 9 a.m. Wednesday, the NYS Business Council will hold an Energy Committee meeting “to discuss the PSC Resource Adequacy Review, Clean Energy Standard, Legislation, and other matters of interest to membership.”

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, the City Planning Commission will hold a public meeting, which will be livestreamed.

At noon Wednesday in Albany, the New York State Board of Elections will hold a tentative commissioners meeting.

On Wednesday at 5 p.m., this week's Max & Murphy show will air on WBAI radio, 99.5FM and streaming at wbai.org.

Thursday
At 7 p.m. Thursday, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will host a town hall “on public housing issues that impact our district and community” at NYCHA Boston Road Plaza in the Bronx.

Friday and the weekend
At 10 a.m. Friday, Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show.

***
Have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).

***
by Joey Fox and Samar Khurshid
@GothamGazette

The State Capitol (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

The New York State Public Campaign Financing Commission, tasked with devising a voluntary system of public funding for state elections, held its first meeting Wednesday at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. The commission has inspired a measure of optimism among government reformers that it will limit the influence of money in state elections and reduce pay-to-play politics that have long defined state government.

The commission, which was named in July, was created in this year’s state budget as a compromise between legislative leaders and Governor Andrew Cuomo when they could not come to an agreement on the specifics of a public campaign finance system for state elections. Seven of the commission’s nine members were appointed by Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, all Democrats, with each selecting two commissioners and jointly appointing another. Republican minority leaders, Senator John Flanagan and Assembly Member Brian Kolb, each had one appointment.

The goal of the commission is to reduce the sway of large-dollar political donors in elections by incentivizing candidates to seek smaller contributions that can be matched with public funds. It would be modelled after the program administered in New York City’s municipal elections by the Campaign Finance Board, which matches small dollar contributions at a 6-to-1 or 8-to-1 ratio depending on what restrictions candidates opt to operate under.

The state commission is charged with developing a plan to distribute up to $100 million in public funding annually to candidates running for legislative and statewide office. In order to participate in the program, candidates will have to adhere to spending limits, lower contribution limits, and stricter disclosure requirements.

The commission’s mandate also includes examining the state’s fusion voting system, which allows candidates to run on ballot lines for multiple parties at the same time. The system gives third parties such as the Working Families Party and Conservative Party a measure of influence in state elections as candidates seek their endorsement and ballot line. In order to maintain their place on the ballot for four years, the parties must receive at least 50,000 votes in a gubernatorial election, which would be threatened if the state commission moved to end fusion voting.

“I hope and expect...that they deal with public campaign finance where small dollars will be matched at least 6-to-1...and I’m hoping that they do not try to get rid of fusion voting,” Senator Robert Jackson, a Manhattan Democrat, told Gotham Gazette at the meeting. “The bottom line is if...smaller parties are out, then you’re dealing with two parties -- and that’s not democracy,” he added.

The purpose of Wednesday’s meeting, where many of the commissioners met for the first time, was to establish procedures for the work that lies ahead. “The first thing we have to do...is organize ourselves and lay a framework for what the commission is going to do and how it is going to do it,” said Commissioner Jay Jacobs, a Cuomo appointee and the chair of the state Democratic Party.

The commission will hold five sessions to solicit input from members of the public, with the fifth meeting reserved for testimony from invited experts. Its final report is due December 1 and will become binding if legislators do not return from break to modify it within 20 days.

At the outset of the meeting John Nonna, the Westchester County Attorney appointed to the commission by Stewart-Cousins, asked whether the commission had the authority to lower contribution limits for candidates who opt out of a public matching program, “because there’s a relationship there that needs to be taken into account.”

“That’s one of the issues that we’ll have to discuss and see where we go on that. I think that’s an issue before us,” replied Henry Berger, a well-known election lawyer appointed to the commission jointly by Cuomo, Stewart-Cousins, and Heastie.

Another issue raised by commissioners was whether the final plan had to be approved in a single vote of the commission at the end of it’s roughly three-month timeline. Jacobs, who submitted a resolution that aspects of the ultimate proposal cannot be separated into multiple votes, explained his reasoning: “The idea being that this is a package and we have to all agree on the components of the package and we can’t pick it apart à la carte.”

“We’re going to vote on it as a single piece of legislation, and that piece of legislation will probably include a severability clause, they usually do,” Berger later added.

The two commissioners appointed by Republican leaders -- David Previtte, selected by Senator Flanagan, and Kimberly Galvin, chosen by Assembly Member Kolb -- voted against the resolution, which carried.

“I voted against the resolution because I had never seen the resolution,” Galvin told Gotham Gazette after the meeting. “I think it’s unfortunate that at an organizational meeting, one of the commissioners would pull out a resolution and expect an immediate vote when we hadn’t seen it, reviewed it, discussed it or talked about it.”

With the commission also looking at the issue of fusion voting, third parties say they are being targeted by Cuomo. Both the WFP and the Conservative Party, along with a handful of state legislators, have filed lawsuits challenging the commission’s authority to change or even eliminate fusion voting, saying the appointed commission cannot change statutes that have been upheld by the courts. Advocates saw Jacobs’s resolution to package the final proposal as a way to bind the issue of fusion voting with the prospect of a public campaign finance system.

“It's a transparent effort to tie public financing and ending fusion voting together. This is Cuomo's poison pill to eliminate fusion voting,” said WFP executive director Bill Lipton, in a statement addressing the resolution.

The WFP has a sour history with Cuomo. The party backed actor and education activist Cynthia Nixon in her primary challenge against the governor last year and supported progressive state Senate candidates challenging members of the erstwhile Independent Democratic Conference. The now-defunct IDC was a group of eight breakaway Democratic state senators who shared power with Republicans and whose then-leader Senator Jeff Klein was a Cuomo ally, allowing the governor to hold sway in a divided Albany.

During the budget session, Cuomo, who repeatedly said he supported creating a public matching system, raised what fusion voting proponents called unfounded concerns about how a public financing system could be administered, and the effects of independent expenditures and fusion voting on the proposed system. “Cuomo has put fusion in the cross-hairs to attack us. Fortunately, the State Constitution protects this important right,” Lipton said

At the meeting, the commissioners also touched on the need to consider the administrative costs of implementing a state public matching system and methods for receiving and considering public testimony, including public hearing procedures and electronic submissions. In a closed executive session, which came at the end of the hour-long meeting, Galvin said the commission considered the issue of staffing, or a lack thereof. “[W]e just all talked about it and tried to figure out some way to [staff the commission], and I don’t think that’s been resolved yet,” Galvin told Gotham Gazette.

For years, advocates have sought a state-level public financing program. Fair Elections for New York, a coalition of labor unions, good government organizations, and community groups, which led the push for public campaign financing during the legislative session and budget negotiations, rallied outside the building prior to the meeting to push for what they hope to see the commission accomplish.

“We are...committed to expanding the democratic process in this state to make sure that big money donors, that corporate dollars, that real estate do not suffocate our democracy,” said Jawanza Williams of Vocal-NY, a multi-issue community organizing group and member of the Fair Elections coalition.

The coalition called for the commission to create a 6-to-1 matching program for both primary and general elections. The group says the high matching ratio must be accompanied by lower contribution limits for both participating and nonparticipating candidates in order to incentivize small-dollar fundraising and participation in the program. The group would also like to see the commission set up an independent enforcement unit separate from the State Board of Elections, whose commissioners are selected by party leaders and which has been criticized for lacking independence.

On Tuesday, Reinvent Albany, a good government watchdog and member of Fair Elections, issued a list of 18 recommendations for the commission, which include establishing clear and granular expenditure guidelines, and lower contribution limits for party committees and entities with business interests before the state.

The overriding goal of reformers is to limit opportunities for pay-to-play politics, which has only worsened in the decade since the Citizens United decision, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that political contributions are a form of constitutionally protected speech. New York State also had lax campaign finance laws until they were amended earlier this year, and has seen years of unending corruption scandals with lawmakers regularly going to prison.

“We’re here today to let the Commission and the leaders who appointed them know that New Yorkers are paying attention and expect them to craft a model for the nation to lessen the influence of big money and give power back to constituents,” said Laura Friedenbach, deputy campaign manager for the Fair Elections coalition, in a statement.

The Public Campaign Finance Commission will hold four public hearings throughout the state during September and October. The fifth meeting for invited experts has yet to be scheduled.

New York City Hall

What to watch for this week in New York politics:

Mayor Bill de Blasio returned to the city on Sunday evening after spending two days campaigning in New Hampshire. The mayor continues to struggle to drum up support for his presidential campaign and has yet to meet the donor threshold for the next Democratic primary debate, which will be held in September. But he may receive a much-needed boost when he appears at a CNN town hall to discuss his campaign on Sunday, August 25. 

As is usual in August, things are slow at the New York City Council, which has no more committee hearings or votes scheduled for the rest of the month. Last week, the Council passed several bills, including a massive package of reforms to the city's public benefit system. 

On Wednesday, the New York State Public Campaign Financing Commission will hold its first meeting. The commission was created during the state budget negotiations earlier this year and is expected to craft a plan for publicly financed state elections, similar to the system currently used New York City's municipal elections. The nine members of the commission were named by Governor Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders last month. 

In the city, we continue to wait for NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill's decision regarding Officer Daniel Pantaleo, whose use of a banned chokehold led to the death of Eric Garner five years ago. Pantaleo has been suspended without pay since an NYPD administrative trial judge ruled that he should be removed from the force. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the judge had found Pantaleo to be "untruthful" in his explanations to investigators about Garner's death. Commisioner O'Neill has said he will arrive at his decision before the end of the month. 

There are several events to be aware of - see our day-by-day rundown below.

***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
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The run of the week in detail:

Monday
Governor Cuomo is in Albany and New York City with no public events scheduled. 

Mayor de Blasio appear on NY1's Inside City Hall during the 7 and 11 p.m. hours.

Tuesday
At 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the NYC Board of Elections will hold a commissioners meeting.

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, the Real Estate Board of New York will host “The New Rent Laws - What We Know AND What We Don't Know with Rose & Rose Law.”

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, CannaGather will host a “Congressional Update & Cannabis for Autism” event with U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney.

Wednesday
At 9 a.m. Wednesday, the Urban Land Institute will lead a tour of the East Side Access Project, “one of the largest transportation infrastructure projects currently underway in the United States. East Side Access provides new, direct Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) service into a new concourse below Grand Central Terminal on Manhattan’s East Side, reducing commutes into Manhattan by up to 40 minutes.”

At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, IDNYC will hold a hearing on proposed changes to the IDNYC program, at which members of the public can share their feedback. The proposed amendments “provide for a streamlined card renewal process. Among other things, these amendments also allow existing cardholders to update their address, including at renewal, without requiring them to present original residency documents.”

At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, the New York State Public Campaign Financing CommissionPublic Campaign Financing Commission will hold its first meeting at the CUNY Graduate Center. 

At 2 p.m. Wednesday, the NYC Department of Transportation will hold a public hearing.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday, this week's Max & Murphy show on WBAI will focus on the 30th anniversary of David Dinkins' election as mayor in 1989, and include an interview with Dinkins and another with journalist Tom Robbins, who covered Dinkins in the '80s and '90s. Tune in at 99.5FM or wbai.org.

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, City & State NY will host its 2019 Brooklyn Power 100 reception, “gathering top brass from government, advocacy, academia, media, business and beyond for a networking opportunity you do not want to miss.” Speakers will include Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries.

Thursday
At 6 p.m. Thursday, TransitCenter will host Can Riders Trust the MTA Reorganization?, “a discussion of the MTA reorganization plan and what New York can learn from comparable transit agency restructurings in London, with insights from former Transport for London executive Leon Daniels, PCAC Executive Director Lisa Daglian, and Reinvent Albany Senior Analyst Rachel Fauss. If you want to understand what’s in the MTA reorganization plan and what it means for NYC’s transit system, you won’t want to miss it.”

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the American Planning Association New York Metro Chapter will host The Political and Social Cost of Advancing Equity, an event providing “a space to discuss the emotional, physical, and professional stresses people of color and other professionals from underrepresented groups face when advancing equity.” Speakers will include Hafizah Omar, senior associate at Living Cities; Justin Garrett Moore, executive director of the Public Design Commission; and Naim Brown, director of place-based investment at Urbane Development.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, the Manhattan Young Democrats will host its 11th Annual Young Gets It Done event “where you can party with 300+ young professionals, recognize incredible young progressive honorees, and meet your elected representatives!” Among the honorees are state Senator Alessandra Biaggi, managing partner of Arena Ravi Gupta, and others.

Friday and the weekend
At 10 a.m. Friday, Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show. On Sunday at 7p.m., the mayor will appear at a CNN town hall to discuss his presidential campaign. 

***
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by Joey Fox and Samar Khurshid
@GothamGazette

Joe Borelli, center (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

Joe Borelli, the Republican City Council Member from Staten Island’s South Shore, has made a name for himself as one of the most vociferous pro-Donald Trump supporters in the president’s home city. But, Borelli is a realist and knows that Trump is unpopular in very-Democratic New York, and that the Republican Party has a lot of work to do to regain a foothold in city or state government after several disappointing elections.

During a wide-ranging interview on the Max and Murphy podcast, Borelli said the New York GOP, now under new leadership, must focus on rebuilding locally around the state and looked ahead to the party’s chances in the 2020 state and federal elections, the 2021 New York City mayoral race, and the 2022 state elections that will include the next race for governor. He also touched on his own admittedly quixotic campaign for New York City Public Advocate, where he’s running this year in a special election to unseat incumbent Jumaane Williams, what the party’s message should be, and how the New York GOP should approach Trump’s long shadow.

“The new chairman, Nick Langworthy, would do a better job by focusing on the county executive races, the county legislative races, where we can dominate,” Borelli said of the new state chair, when asked about the next race for governor. “Having those competitive races upstate, with good candidates, has an effect on the gubernatorial race.”

For governor, “The Republican Party needs someone in the batter’s box, someone who can hit home runs,” Borelli said, meaning someone with star power who can overcome the daunting voter registration odds that are better for the GOP statewide than in New York City, but still create a steep uphill battle for the first Republican statewide win since Governor George Pataki won a third term in 2002.

The party needs to keep building a bench, but also needs to find candidates for governor and mayor that can far outperform the baseline numbers, Borelli acknowledges. Many point to recapturing control of the state Senate as a pressing need, while Langworthy has said his top goal is winning the 2022 governor’s race.

It’s certainly not only upstate that should matter to New York Republicans, for if they only dominate there, they will still be out of power when it comes to the governor’s office or even the state Senate, which had been the GOP’s last statewide stronghold until last November’s elections swung it to Democrats by a fairly wide margin.

Citing the special election that will likely be called early next year to replace current Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, who is in line to become Queens District Attorney, Borelli said that it’s “a seat where Republicans have not ran credibly in the past. I think identifying those seats where we can run a good race, where it’s worth it to have a Republican on the ballot, is one of the things that we could certainly do.”

Queens City Council Member Eric Ulrich, who along with Borelli and Staten Island’s Steven Matteo make up the Council’s only three Republicans in 51 seats, is expected to run in the special election. Ulrich is significantly more moderate than Borelli and has been highly critical of Trump, but many Republicans acknowledge they must embrace candidates like Ulrich to have a chance in urban and suburban areas.

“Giving each locality or region of the state the autonomy to make these kind of party direction decisions is something Nick Langworthy has to do,” Borelli said.

Borelli believes Democrats in New York City have created an opening for moderate Republican candidates.

“If there are people who are disaffected with progressive activists, I’m not saying they’re gonna be Republicans, but they might be New York City Republicans. They might entertain a Mike Bloomberg again. They’re not gonna entertain me for mayor,” he said, “and I don’t expect them to. I don’t think that’s a realistic proposition. But they might entertain a moderate mayoral candidate at some point who is more back-to-basics.”

Borelli said that he’s seen some evidence that this is already happening, especially with voters of color. “The Republican Party has long talked about rebuilding and attracting new voters. I think that, not since we’ve had Mayor de Blasio has there been the actual opportunity to do so. The mayor is the most uniting mayor we’ve ever had – no matter where you go, people don’t seem to like him…He has opened up opportunities for us to attract new groups.”

The Republican Party should “look at [voters of color] as who they are outside of their ethnic identity, and try to find common ground where they care about,” according to Borelli. He cited controversial local issues such as the SHSAT, school discipline, property taxes, and the minimum wage where Republicans could find common ground with Democratic voters, no matter whether those voters are “black, brown, or purple.”

Most important to Borelli is simply reasserting the Republican Party as the main alternative to Democrats in New York.

“When you talk about opposition to Cuomo, most often, you in media, you’re talking about his left flank, and you’re talking about the Working Families [Party], and some labor unions,” Borelli said. “The GOP under [former Chairman Ed] Cox, the failure was not to offer a viable alternative. Even if a lot of voters don’t think that alternative is great, I think the bigger failure was not being the major opposition party in the state.”

“Bringing the state GOP as the opposition group, so that disaffected people gravitate this way instead of that way, I think is more important than hedging our opinion on any issue,” Borelli added. [LISTEN to the full interview]

A Race Borelli’s “Not Gonna Win”
Amidst his many proposals for Republican revitalization, Borelli also spoke of his own upcoming November election against Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat, for Public Advocate -- a race about which Borelli has no delusions.

“I’m running in a race I’m not gonna win, let’s be frank,” Borelli said. “This is a really uphill fight, it’s a 7:1 or 6½:1 Democratic enrollment, so I’m doing this because I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy beating a drum a little differently than the other guy.”

The big difference, Borelli says, is that he would actually be a public advocate who holds the mayor accountable, whereas Williams is more aligned with de Blasio, even if Williams has been critical of the mayor at times.

Borelli wants to give what is currently a relatively powerless office far more influence. “The charter doesn’t say much of must, the Public Advocate must, right? It doesn’t give them the great seal of the exchequer, or something like that. It’s no guidance. The Public Advocate may do this, should do that, could do that.” 

Among the changes Borelli has proposed are to give the office oversight of the Department of Investigations and a seat on several powerful boards, such the MTA’s. 

“If that doesn’t happen” Borelli said, “then I would support…revising the office itself, and that would mean to eliminate it.”  

“The only function of the job is to be a bully pulpit and direct your bullseye...on the mayor,” Borelli said. “And I think it’s better to have someone who fundamentally disagrees with most stuff the mayor does.”

“As the Public Advocate, I could do a pretty good job of treating [Mayor de Blasio] as my punching bag,” he says, echoing a message Ulrich used in the February nonpartisan special election, that Williams won, where Ulrich came in second. The only merchandise that Borelli’s website is currently selling is a series of t-shirts and stickers featuring de Blasio’s face and a red line crossing it.

Borelli acknowledges that he’s having a hard time raising significant funds for the campaign, or even asking for them, and that Republicans generally concentrate on mayoral races in New York City, at the expense of others like for public advocate or comptroller.

“I’m not always right. I’m OK admitting that,” he said. “But I think someone should be addressing things from an alternate point of view and offering an alternative vision for the city.”

Donald Trump’s Long Shadow
Borelli, who was co-chair of Trump’s campaign team in the 2016 New York primary, said that he’s sticking by Trump despite his many controversies.

Asked about how he reconciles support for some of Trump’s policies and judicial appointments, why he isn’t among the conservatives who say they simply can’t support Trump because of his morals, ethics, and behavior, Borelli said, “In my brain I can separate the two.”

“When I’ve disagreed with the president on both policy and on personality, I’m not someone who toes the line,” Borelli continued. “They have not asked me to be on the advisory board for 2020…probably because I don’t toe the line all the time. I think you measure every president on the balance of whether they’re doing good or bad.”

He said Trump’s policies are good for New York, especially economically. “On balance, a lot of us just can ignore the things we disagree with.”

Is he OK telling kids Trump is the moral leader of the country and someone they should look up to, Borelli hedged, saying there’s something about the office of the presidency to respect, and said “I’m not as offended as most people on most things,” he said.

“We’re sick of being called racists,” he said of Trump supporters. “Do you know how many times a day I get called a racist? It’s almost mind-numbing...It’s almost entrenching on our side, when you get called deplorable, and a racist, and every -ism imaginable, because you have a difference of opinion. It almost entrenches you into that bubble.”

After seeing 2018 Republican gubernatorial nominee Marc Molinaro hedge on his support for Trump, Borelli said he wishes people in his party would be more direct in their opinions on the President, whatever they may be.

“Just be pretty brutally honest about how you feel. If you don’t like Trump, say it. If you like Trump, say it, and come what may.” He added, “I’m not saying there wouldn’t be an electoral cost to it.”

Molinaro repeatedly stated throughout his campaign that he had not voted for Trump (he said he wrote in former New York Congressional Rep. Chris Gibson), but was mostly hesitant to explain why or criticize Trump during the campaign, and Cuomo repeatedly tied Molinaro to Trump.

In spite of his strong support for Trump, Borelli characterized himself as a “moderate.” He clarified, “I think I would be billed as a conservative” by others. “Although, hey, I swing some ways on some issues.”

2020, 2021 and Beyond
2018 represented a drubbing for New York Republicans, with the party losing three Congressional seats and eight state Senate seats (along with the majority in both chambers). But according to Borelli, 2020 gives the party a clear chance to rebound.

“Four [state] Senate seats -- I think that’s a realistic goal,” Borelli said of how many seats Republicans can and should recapture next year, when the entire Legislature is on the ballot, along with Trump. “I think it’s a possibility. It still doesn’t bring us to the promised land, but I think that’s enough of a pendulum swinging back, and a check on sort of the movement of the far left, that it would build a better mousetrap for at least two years in the state.”

“I think,” he continued, “you’d have people like [Senate President] Andrea Stewart-Cousins saying, ‘let’s pump the brakes on some of the stuff that we’re doing, because it’s clearly not playing well in the Hudson Valley,’ for example.”

On the subject of Congress, Borelli’s predictions were even more specific. He singled out Max Rose, his home borough’s Democratic Congressman, as uniquely vulnerable.

“Yeah, 100%, [Max Rose is beatable],” Borelli said when asked if newcomer Rose could be defeated. “He’s certainly beatable on the ground level, and he’s certainly beatable in the metrics they consider in Washington. The resulting action of that is going to be a lot of money spent on each side. He’s really doing an incredible job raising money, credit where credit is due. It will be tough for whoever the Republican nominee is to beat him, but there’s a chance.”

The leading Republican in that race is Staten Island Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, whom Borelli did not mention by name, though he briefly criticized her 2017 mayoral campaign, and whom he has not endorsed. Borelli had given some consideration to joining the congressional race, but opted against it and ran for public advocate instead.

Borelli also raised several Upstate congressional seats he thinks Republicans can hold or retake, and said that after a tough 2018, having Trump at the top of the ticket in 2020 is likely to help certain Republican candidates.

Looking even further into the future, Borelli said he could see Molinaro running for governor again in 2022, when Cuomo is planning to seek a fourth term, but he also mentioned Congressional Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is attempting to win what is likely a tough reelection campaign next year, as someone he’d like to see consider a run for governor.

And Borelli predicted that Republicans may have to wait another six years to have a shot at the New York City mayor’s office. In 2021, he said, “there’s going to be so much attention, so much public financing, on the five or six, or however many it ends up being, Democratic candidates that it will be very difficult for a Republican to win. I say that with the full knowledge that I’ll be out there, probably supporting whoever we run, trying my best to get him or her elected, but it is an uphill race.”

In 2025, however, “when you have an incumbent who’s going to get beat up in a primary, and then you are the sole opposition person against them in the general, I think that’s an easier race.” He referenced Republicans beating Mayor David Dinkins in his bid for a second term in 1993, and said that in the future, the Republican pitch to voters in the city has to be about the cost of living and the cost of doing business.

“You can get very far when you have someone like Bill de Blasio, knocking Bill de Blasio,” Borelli said when asked about the Republican vision and pitch. “But you’re right; I think it always is going to be harder for conservatives to formulate a vision of the future, because in essence, conservatism is the preservation of the status quo. I don’t mean that in any racial or whatever ‘isms’ you want to throw at me, I mean that that’s the nature of the conservative mindset.”

As for his own 2021 plans, Borelli has a bold plan in mind. “I’ll say it right now: if I win for Public Advocate, I am running for mayor. Don’t ask, just pack your bags and come on the ride with me. I’m going to Gracie. If we somehow eke out this incredible win, then put me on the list.”

LISTEN to the full interview with Joe Borelli: Max & Murphy Podcast: The Future of the Republican Party in New York

City Council Member Joe Borelli (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

August 14, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: The Future of the New York Republican Party

City Council Member Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican and strong supporter of President Donald Trump, joined the show to discuss his candidacy for Public Advocate and the present and future of the New York Republican Party.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org

Mayor de Blasio & Comptroller Stringer (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)

Amid the larger discussion about addressing climate change before it’s too late, debate is raging in New York over whether government-run and -affiliated pension funds worth hundreds of billions of dollars and responsible for payments that support hundreds of thousands of retirees should divest from fossil fuel company stock.

Advocates, elected officials, and others have been pushing at the city and state levels for full divestment so that the pension funds are not supporting or tied to companies that are leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, a warming planet, and the negative consequences of climate change.

But some officials have warned, and practiced, caution, putting forth arguments that the primary priority of pension fund investment must be return for current and future retirees, and that it is important not to overly politicize investment decisions, especially given how uncertain the future is and that some of the leading fossil fuel companies are at the front lines of figuring out the renewable energy future.

There’s also the argument, often made by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, that by remaining invested with fossil fuel (and other) companies, it is possible as activist investors to help shift their behavior. And while New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer often espouses and practices that philosophy, when it comes to fossil fuel company divestment, Stringer has worked with Mayor Bill de Blasio, labor union leaders, and others to move city pension funds toward dropping stake in those companies.

The New York City and State pension fund pictures are significantly different, with responsibility at the state level much more concentrated in DiNapoli’s office than the city’s in Stringer’s. But the different approaches being taken by the two Democratic comptrollers, who are the popularly-elected chief fiscal officers of their respective jurisdictions, show divergent paths in this particularly fraught political, financial, environmental, and existential moment.

While he’s one of a number of key decision-makers, Stringer is pushing full speed ahead toward fossil fuel divestment by the city pension funds. DiNapoli, meanwhile, has cautioned against that approach, even criticizing it as overly political and reactionary, while taking his own steps to diversify investments, experiment with a carbon-free energy stock portfolio, and push fossil fuel companies toward new policies. 

Advocacy groups like Fossil Free New York and New York Communities for Change are pushing for the $210-billion state pension fund, known as the Common Retirement Fund (CRF), to divest from fossil fuel companies completely. The CRF has about $13 billion in fossil fuel-related investments, according to Fossil Free New York.

In April 2018, as the Democratic primary in his bid for a third term was heating up, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared the state’s pension fund should divest from fossil fuels. But in New York the Governor does not control the pension fund; the State Comptroller is the sole fiduciary of the CRF and, as such, has final say over when investments are made and retracted.

While he took that stance, Cuomo has not made divestment a major focus, applying minimal pressure to DiNapoli to take more aggressive action. His office recently told Gotham Gazette that the governor is working with the DiNapoli on a path toward divestment, in large part through an advisory group they established together.

Advocates did celebrate in March of this year when Cuomo took a significant new step, calling on state agencies and authorities such as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to examine divesting whatever funds they have in fossil fuel companies.

“As part of the Green New Deal, Governor Cuomo directed State authorities, public benefit corporations, and the State Insurance Fund, which collectively hold approximately $40 billion in investments, to study divesting from fossil fuels. They are reviewing and evaluating the feasibility and appropriateness of such a measure,” Jordan Levine, a spokesperson for Cuomo, said in a statement to Gotham Gazette.

The governor’s office was unable to identify at this time how much of that $40 billion is currently invested in fossil fuel companies.

Back in early 2017, DiNapoli and Stringer both argued that engaging with major fossil fuel producers like ExxonMobil as shareholders would yield better results than immediate divestments.

However, in 2017, Stringer and the five municipal pension funds initiated an analysis of their investments’ carbon footprint in 2017. Then, in January 2018, after the study concluded, Stringer changed his stance. He, Mayor de Blasio, and other pension fund board members announced their plan for three of the five pension funds (the police and firefighter pension funds are not currently part of the plan and account for less than a third of total pension assets). The city’s five funds have about $5 billion invested in fossil fuel producers out of almost $211 billion in pension fund investments. 

In a celebratory announcement that month alongside de Blasio and others, Stringer asserted that he and other city pension fund trustees “would be shirking our fiduciary duty if we were not exploring all options to address climate risk.”

An involved divestment process is underway, at least at three of the funds -- the Comptroller and the Mayor have seats on the boards of all five pension funds but cannot make unilateral or even bilateral decisions about their investments.

State Response - DiNapoli and His Critics
Under considerable pressure to divest state pension funds from fossil fuel companies, in April 2018, Governor Cuomo and Comptroller DiNapoli convened the Decarbonization Advisory Panel to study the issue. In April of this year, the panel released its report, which made several recommendations and put forward “examples” of what the comptroller could do to mitigate the fund’s carbon footprint. However, the report was criticized by climate activists like 350.org’s Richard Brooks for not including a timeline or benchmarks to achieve divestment.

But even before the panel was assembled, DiNapoli had been taking steps around the question of divestment, creating a $10 billion portfolio of investments into green companies. “We’ve done a lot already to allocate money to climate solutions,” DiNapoli said during a May interview on The Capitol Pressroom with host Susan Arbetter, “they’d like to see us do even more there.”

But the comptroller’s stance has caught the ire of local climate activists, who are the ones who want him to “do even more,” as the comptroller put it. Pete Sikora, the climate and inequality campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, said the comptroller “continues to finance the climate crisis.”

“Not to be too sarcastic, but if you’re going to finance evil stuff that destroys our future, you'd hope the state would at least make - not lose - money off it,” Sikora said, noting that the energy sector “continues to trend down over a decade...of industry under-performance.”

“It’s simply insane to not divest, and losing money on the proposition makes it even more absurd,” said Sikora.

Despite growing pressure from activists and lawmakers on the issue, DiNapoli has maintained that his more moderate approach is what is in the best interest of the CRF and its members. He believes that implementing standards such as the ones suggested in the panel’s report will naturally lead to fossil fuel investments being phased out over time and would avoid the negative impacts of wholesale divestment.

In a June 2019 interview with WAMC’s Capitol Connection, DiNapoli said “when we make judgements about where to put the pension fund, we put it in the best interests of the state.” He went on to defend his approach in significantly more harsh terms than the mild-mannered and reserved DiNapoli typically uses.

Some state lawmakers disagree with the comptroller’s assessment and want to force the his hand on the issue.

The Fossil Fuel Divestment Act would require the CRF to withdraw all investments in the 200 largest fossil fuel companies. The FFDA sets a five-year deadline for this to happen and would allow the comptroller to stop or reverse divestment if it can be demonstrated that it would significantly hurt the CRF’s value.

Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat and the FFDA’s prime sponsor in the state Senate, said in a statement that while the proposal did not pass during this year’s legislative session, she “continue[s] to have conversations with my colleagues about the importance of” the bill. She also added that she is “working on amending the bill based on testimony we heard, both to make it stronger and to address various concerns that were raised.”

“With all due respect to the Legislature, for the Legislature to start micromanaging the pension fund is a recipe for disaster long-term,” DiNapoli said on WAMC, adding that “it may be climate change today, but what will it be tomorrow?”

DiNapoli has previously divested the pension fund from gun companies following the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and from the private prison industry over concerns about the treatment of immigrants and people of color in 2018. Both are cited by critics who want the comptroller to act more decisively on fossil fuel companies.

Krueger said she “strongly believe[s] that [DiNapoli] is wrong on divestment” when it comes to fossil fuels, while noting that they “have talked about divestment extensively” and the comptroller has “been a long-time champion of the environment and climate action.” Despite their talks, “neither of us have managed to convince the other,” she said.

Krueger criticized DiNapoli’s “strategy of engagement with major fossil fuel producers like ExxonMobil” for not “providing any consequences when they repeatedly brush him off. It’s time for some consequences.”

“New York should begin the process now or our retirees will be left holding the bag,” Krueger concluded.

“Does anybody think if we sell the stock tomorrow that’ll make the air cleaner? No,” DiNapoli said during the WAMC interview.

“Since it's become clear that Comptroller DiNapoli currently lacks the moral and fiduciary courage to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and Wall Street, this legislation is necessary,” said Sikora, referring to the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, in an interview with Gotham Gazette.

“It’s clear we have our work cut out for ourselves in both houses,” said Sikora, assessing the bill’s likelihood of passage next session, which begins in January. During the last session, the FFDA had 28 sponsors in the 63-seat Senate and 37 in the 150-seat Assembly.

DiNapoli plans to follow the advisory panel’s recommendations. According to the DAP’s report called the Climate Action Plan, “rather than making a narrow recommendation to divest from specific stocks, the panel supports the concept of minimum standards to guide the fund in its decisions to sell securities and/or avoid investment managers whose operations and strategies are not sustainable.”

The report argues that divestment from unsustainable companies is “baked in” to this plan of action and that the fund will only invest in sustainable assets by 2030.

The panel’s report says that the CRF should have a minimum standard for where its funds are invested. The panel recommends that the criteria for these minimum standards be set through contracts, but only gave “examples” of what the standards could be, such as requiring “an appropriate corporate governance system for the management of climate-related issues” and “a lobbying policy actively supporting government actions to address climate change.”

The report also suggests examples of actions and timeline that the comptroller’s office could pursue, including “excluding all companies that derive more than 10% of revenue from mining thermal coal or account for more than 1% of global production” by 2020 and “if less than 5% decreased in [greenhouse gas] emissions year on year after” several engagements then “consider a shareholder resolution.”

When DiNapoli released the climate action plan, Fossil Free New York called it “a weak plan at a time when we need bold and transformative action,” and said it is “lip service and incrementalism.” The advocacy group further said “the plan includes no benchmarks, no firm delivery deadlines, no parameters to measure companies’ actions, and doesn’t even commit to divest from thermal coal companies, including ones on the edge of bankruptcy.” FFNY supports the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act.

On WCNY’s The Capitol Pressroom in May, DiNapoli said his opposition to divestment stemmed from his responsibility as fiduciary of the state’s pension fund, saying “this is my job, it’s what I was elected to do.”

He also brought up his 2018 reelection, in which he received more votes than he did in 2014, while Mark Dunlea, the Green Party candidate who campaigned almost exclusively on pension divestment from fossil fuel companies, did worse than the previous Green Party nominee when DiNapoli sought reelection in 2010.

“I actually feel that those in the broader public who’ve looked at this issue are more on our side,” the comptroller said. DiNapli’s Republican opponent in the race, Jonathan Trichter, criticized the comptroller from the right, saying he was playing politics by making the moves he had to explore divestment and create the Sustainable Investment Program, in which $10 billion of pension assets are invested in low-emissions or green companies.

Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit, praises Comptroller DiNapoli as “a global leader in the fight against climate change, addressing material risks and pursuing opportunities for the Fund’s investments.” Ceres supports the “active” investor strategy that DiNapoli has claimed is a better path forward than divestment.

During a debate last fall, Dunlea claimed “if we divested a decade ago, we’d have about $22 billion in the state pension fund,” referring to a 2018 assement from Corporate Knights. A competing unions-funded study said the opposite.

While there are competing studies, Bloomberg News reported recently that some private investment funds are beginning to divest themselves from fossil fuel producers, based solely on the financial risks involved.

DiNapoli regularly notes that while he is the sole fiduciary, he does not make his decisions alone by a long shot, with a chief investment officer, a board of advisors, and others who help determine all aspects of pension fund management. On The Capitol Pressroom, DiNapoli said he was unfairly being singled out by activists and other critics, while also noting that New York City was still in the study phase and that two of the five city pension funds had not agreed to divest.

“So the pressure on me is that we guarantee retirement security for the 1.1 million members of the pension plan, which is a lot of pressure,” DiNapoli said.

New York City Divestment
City Comptroller Scott Stringer has changed course from his previous stance and is now leading an initiative to divest the city’s pension funds from fossil fuel companies, although he is encountering his own challenges in doing so.

“New York City is planting the seed for a clean, green, and thriving economy that can truly support future generations,” Stringer said in a statement to Gotham Gazette. The city has “taken this first-in-the-nation step toward divestment to protect both the retirement security of our city’s workers and the future of our planet,” the comptroller added.

The plan announced by Stringer and Mayor de Blasio in January 2018 set a goal of total divestment within five years. As of July 2019, the city is still in the planning stages, having sent out a request for proposals (RFP) for financial advisors to come up with a divestment strategy last December. The comptroller will select a plan to move forward by December 1 of this yea. But, a key wrinkle in the process is that two of the city’s five municipal pension funds are not on board with divestment as of now.

Unlike the state pension fund, New York City’s public employee pensions are not unified under one system. Instead, there are five separate funds, each with their own boards. In total, the pension funds account for over $195 billion in assets. The largest is the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS), which handles the pensions for most municipal employees.

There were two pension funds for the city’s education-related employees, the Board of Education Retirement System (BERS) covers most non-teacher civil service employees of the city’s school district, while the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) is for educators employed by the Department of Education, CUNY, or charter schools in the city. The NYPD and FDNY each have their own pension funds, the Police Pension Fund (PPF) and Fire Department Pension Fund (FDPF), respectively.

Also unlike the state pension fund, each of the five funds has its own board and the city comptroller is not the sole fiduciary of the funds. Each board has its own composition requirements. The Mayor or a mayoral appointee sits on all five boards, as does the city comptroller. The Public Advocate sits on the NYCERS board. Also, relevant city officials sit on some of the boards, such as the Police Commissioner on the PPF board and the schools chancellor on the BERS board.

The NYCERS board includes a mayoral appointee, the comptroller, the Public Advocate, and the five borough presidents, along with representatives from labor unions including AFSCME, the Teamsters, and the Transport Workers Union, which are the three unions with the most members in the fund.

Primarily, pension fund board members are representatives of pension-eligible employees. Eight of the twelve board members for the both the PPF and the FDPF are either union leaders or elected representatives of pension fund members.

In 2017, all five pension funds initiated a study of climate change’s effects on their funds, which was led by the comptroller’s office. However, a year later, the police and firefighter pension funds did not join the other three funds in announcing plans to divest from fossil fuels.

The PPF and FDPF’s bylaws both require a seven-twelfths majority of the board to take action on anything, such as a divestment proposal. The comptroller and mayoral appointees on both boards fall far short of having the votes to divest without buy-in from at least some of the union leaders or employees. 

In a statement, Sikora praised the comptroller, along with Mayor de Blaiso and other trustees, for “taking real action to fight the climate crisis and we look forward to complete divestment.” Sikora also said that New York Communities for Change is “satisfied with the progress to date” of the city’s divestment plan.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the Uniformed Firefighters Association did not respond to repeated requests for comment regarding their positions on the city divestment plan.

Ben Max contributed to this article.